The Swiss people voted to end the bilateral agreement between Switzerland and the EU that allows unlimited immigration as if they were EU members in February 2014. Since then they have been threatened by the EU with all sorts of retaliatory measures, including cancelling their free trade agreements but they were just empty threats.

Under the Swiss constitution the Swiss government has until February to implement the referendum result into law whether the EU agrees or not and regardless of the consequences. The only way to deal with the EU is by playing hard ball - tell them what the outcome is going to be and ignore their empty threats. The British government need to learn from Switzerland.